As U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken wrapped up his most anticipated two-day visit to Beijing aimed at easing soaring tensions between the countries on Monday, June 19, 2023, he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Speaking to Xi during the 35-minute session at the Great Hall of the People, Blinken said, “the United States and China have an obligation and responsibility to manage our relationship.” Blinken’s meeting with the Chinese leader was not announced until an hour before it started.
“The United States is committed to doing that. It’s in the interest of the United States, in the interests of China, and in the interest of the world,” Blinken averred.
In the meeting, Xi stated that he was pleased with the outcome of Blinken’s earlier meetings with two top Chinese diplomats, adding that the two countries had agreed to resume a program of understandings that he and President Joe Biden agreed to at a meeting in Bali last year.
“The Chinese side has made our decision clear, and the two sides have agreed to follow through the common understandings President Biden and I had reached in Bali,” Xi said.
Xi said that they had made progress and reached agreements on “some specific issues” without elaborating. “This is very good,” he added.
“I hope that through this visit, Mr. Secretary, you will make more positive contributions to stabilizing China-US relation,” Xi stated.
In earlier meetings between Blinken and senior Chinese officials, the two sides expressed willingness to talk but showed little desire to budge from entrenched positions on disagreements ranging from trade, to Taiwan, to human rights conditions in China and Hong Kong, to Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea, to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Blinken described his earlier discussions with senior Chinese officials as “candid and constructive.”
China Blames U.S For Tense Relations
Earlier on Monday, Blinken met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi for about three hours.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted in a statement after the meeting between Blinken and Wang that Blinken’s visit “coincides with a critical juncture in China-U.S. relations, and it is necessary to make a choice between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict.”
It blamed the “U.S. side’s erroneous perception of China, leading to incorrect policies towards China” for the current “low point” in relations.
It said the U.S. had a responsibility to halt “the spiraling decline of China-U.S. relations to push it back to a healthy and stable track” and that Wang had “demanded that the U.S. stop hyping up the ‘China threat theory’, lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, abandon suppression of China’s technological development, and refrain from arbitrary interference in China’s internal affairs.”
The State Department also issued that Blinken “underscored the importance of responsibly managing the competition between the United States and the PRC through open channels of communication to ensure competition does not veer into conflict.”
Blinken had his first round of discussions on Sunday, June 18, 2023, meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for nearly six hours. After the meeting, both countries said that they had agreed to continue high-level discussions.
However, there was no sign that any of the most fractious issues between them were closer to resolution. Both the U.S. and China disclosed that Qin had accepted an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington.
Blinken is the highest-level U.S. official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office, and the first Secretary of State to make the trip in five years. His visit is expected to usher in a new round of visits by senior U.S. and Chinese officials, possibly including a meeting between Xi and Biden in the coming months.
